WHO’s Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan on Vaccine Inequity

DR. SOUMYA SWAMINATHAN, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: We are in the midst of a global pandemic. The virus is everywhere. It’s affecting people everywhere. Of course, there are some parts that are worse-affected at certain times, and then it wanes, and then you see another geographic world of the area getting infected. It’s been waxing and waning. We have the tools now. We have the vaccines. We have diagnostic tests. We have a lot more than we had a year ago. So, we need to find a global solution, and we need to collaborate and work together to do this. We cannot win this battle against this virus one country at a time. It can only be won if we work together. And that’s why the WHO set up the COVAX facility, which was basically meant to not only accelerate the development of vaccines against this virus — and I must say we have been tremendously successful, beyond anybody’s expectations. There are currently 85 vaccines in clinical development, already 10 being used around the world. So, we’re really lucky that we have been able to, scientists have been able to develop these vaccines. Now, they need to be equitably and fairly distributed around the world. Our first priority must be to protect the most vulnerable and prevent deaths. Currently, we are seeing some — on an average, 7,000 to 10,000 deaths a day around the world. These are unnecessary and preventable deaths, can be stopped if vaccines go out to every country in the world to protect those who are at the highest risk of dying. And then we must vaccinate people, progressively increase the coverage in the population, so that we then achieve this herd immunity or population immunity, in order to reduce transmission to the levels where it really doesn’t become a big public health problem.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Right.

SWAMINATHAN: But the issue is that there are limited supplies of vaccines. Companies cannot manufacture billions of doses overnight. It takes time. And while we will be in a better position towards the latter half of the year, right now, it’s really critical that we share the vaccines we have fairly and equitably around the world. Currently, there are 42 countries that have still not vaccinated a single individual, while other countries are moving towards vaccinating their entire adult population. So, that’s really the inequity here. And this is something that can only be solved if political leaders from around the world come together and agree to work together.